Summary

Mary recalls that Ned had always said that England is "such a confoundedly hard place to get lost in!" (18). The narrator explains that it has two weeks since Ned's disappearance and that an official investigation has been ongoing for that time. Mary decides that England is rather "a Sphinx-like guardian of abysmal mysteries, staring back into his wife's anguished eyes as if with the malicious joy of knowing something they would never know!" (18). There has been no new information about Ned's disappearance, and Mary has spent her time ransacking her husband's desk for clues as to where he could have gone and why. She keeps returning to the same letter to Parvis that she found the day he disappeared. Authorities were not able to attach any significance to the letter other than to confirm that Parvis is a lawyer who may...